This invention relates to an apparatus for making a nonwoven fabric from continuous fibers.
There have already been proposed a process as well as an apparatus adapted to accumulate continuous fibers discharged from spinning nozzles of an extruder onto a top surface of an endless belt running in one direction and thereby to make a nonwoven fabric. The endless belt in the known apparatus is air-permeable and there is provided below this endless belt with a suction zone. It is well known in the known apparatus to provide an air gun or suckers serving to blow pressurized air against the continuous fibers, to provide a relatively narrow duct below the air gun or the suckers and to provide a hood below the duct so that the endless belt may be partially covered with the hood.
Provision of the duct and the hood in accordance with the prior art enables a stretching ratio for the fibers to be improved and thereby a desired nonwoven fabric to be made from the continuous fibers having a relatively small denier number. However, the fibers discharged from the spinning nozzles must be previously thinned in order to obtain the fibers having a fineness smaller than 1 d and this requirement deteriorates a production efficiency of a nonwoven fabric per unit time.
It is an object of this invention to improve the known apparatus so that the nonwoven fabric may be efficiently made from the continuous fibers of a fineness less than 1 d.
According to this invention, there is provided an apparatus for making a nonwoven fabric adapted to accumulate continuous fibers discharged from a plurality of spinning nozzles onto a top surface of an air-permeable endless belt running in one direction under a suction effect exerted from below the endless belt, wherein: between the nozzles and the endless belt, the apparatus comprises means adapted to blow pressurized air against the continuous fibers, a duct having a relatively small dimension as viewed in running direction of the endless belt and directly connected to the means so as to extend downward and a hood having a relatively large dimension as viewed in the running direction and directly connected to the duct so as to cover a vicinity of the endless belt""s top surface so that an interior of the hood may be subjected to the suction effect exerted through the endless belt from below the endless belt.